Category: Self-defense

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

-Sir Winston Churchill

The passage of H.R. 38 in the House of Representatives does not signal the end of repressive concealed carry laws in the US. It’s but a step along the way to the end. The next step is passage in the U.S. Senate. This will certainly be a difficult, uphill fight. Though there has been true bipartisan support for the concept in the recent past, there’s no guarantee that Democrats who supported it previously will do so again. It’s easy to support a bill when you know it will never get past a President like Barrack Hussein! (Do you remember George W. Bush supporting the Clinton “assault weapon” ban? He did. He promised to sign the renewal if it ever reached his desk; an easy promise to make when you know there’s a pro-gun majority in the House that will protect you from your own stupidity.)

There’s also no guarantee that the entire Republican caucus will support the bill. Soft, squishy Senators like John McCain just live for the attention they’ll get for opposing the rights of law abiding American gun owners. Worse yet, there are more than a few dim bulbs on the Hill who clearly haven’t read the text of the bill. Or if they have, they’re just refusing to see what isn’t there! Some people just can’t accept victory, it seems.

Going forward, now is not the time for American gun owners to let up. You called and wrote your Representatives, now call and write your Senators. Some of you live in places like California and may be thinking “Senators like Feinstein and Harris will never listen.” They won’t, but call and write anyway. They may not pay attention, but their colleagues cannot help but notice the volume of calls and letters in opposition; even those made to other offices. (Staffers talk to one another, you see. What happens in Senator A’s office will eventually be known in Senator B’s office.)

But, could whiney Mike and Charlie have a point? If they do, then why tell lies to support their case? Shouldn’t a good case be able to stand on its merits and embrace the truth? When whiney Mike and Charlie claim that loose gun laws in other States allow felons to carry concealed guns, they’re lying. It’s always illegal for felons to possess firearms. This is a matter of Federal law. So why did whiney Mike and Charlie need to lie?

In most of California, concealed carry permits are fairly easy to get. California is a “may issue” State, but most counties operate under rules that are closer to “shall issue”. For those who don’t know, the latter means that a permit must be issued to someone if the authorities cannot find a reason not to do so. May issue means that issuance is entirely subjective; the sheriff or police department can issue to whomever they please. In counties like Los Angeles, that means friends of politicians, big donors, and celebrities. Not you, in other words! And if you’re visiting from another State, your permit isn’t valid here. Surprise! Your rights didn’t cross the State line with you.

National CCW reciprocity changes that. Your rights will apply here just as they do in your home State. It’s no different than your driver’s license. Furthermore, and this is what really has whiney Mike and Charlie’s panties in a wad, mere commoners from California would be able to get non-resident permits from others States that would be valid here. This is deliberate. Congressmen fromother States want to see Californians’ rights restored. No longer would self defense be a privilege for the well-to-do.

What Feuer and Beck fail to mention is that California’s powers that be brought this upon themselves. Their years of abusing the may issue system were tolerated by the courts because open carry was always an option. (Albeit, a very weird version of open carry!) Now open carry is illegal. That leaves no option for using a gun for self defense outside of the home. That’s not constitutional.

National Concealed Carry Reciprocity will put and end to the abuses Californians have suffered under politicians like Feuer and Beck. It will make us all equal in the eyes of the law. Whiney Mike and Charlie don’t want that to happen. They benefit too much from a system that allows them to dispense permits only to those who can help their political careers.

“The only reason why any of us walked out of this thing, by the grace of God, one of the folks here had a weapon to fire back and give us a moment to find cover. We were inside the backstop and if we didn’t have that cover by a brave person who stood up and took a shot themselves, we would not have gotten out of there and every one of us would have been hit — every single one of us,” said Bishop. “He was coming around the fence line and he was looking for all of us who had found cover in different spots. But if we didn’t have return fire right there, he would have come up to each one of us and shot us point-blank.”

No details are available at this moment as to the identity of the shooter or the brave civilian who risked his life to protect others.

Like this:

Once a people have lost a right, those in power over them will not, as a rule, willingly return that right. Asking politely, hat in hand, just won’t do the trick. American history teaches us that a more direct approach is what’s needed; something a little more emphatic than just asking nicely.

Something lethal.

In the wake of the latest terror attack in the UK, British gun owners (and those who would like to be gun owners in the UK) are asking for their rights back. There’s a much chance of that happening as there is of Her Majesty sprouting wings and flying off to Mumbai for some curried lamb.

I’ll be blunt about this: You folks in the UK aren’t getting your gun rights back anytime soon. You pissed them away over the course of the last century. Every time you were asked to compromise with the gun banners, you cooperated. Sure, you grumbled a little, but then you caved and turned your guns in like good little minions. Here in the US, anti-gun laws do sometimes get passed over the objections of the People; butwedon’tcooperate. We adapt an old Soviet joke: They pretend to pass laws and we pretend to obey them. We don’t limit ourselves to mere civil disobedience either. The NRA and others have waged a successful legislative and legal campaign to overturn unconstitutional laws and to strengthen the right to keep and bear arms. But even with these successes, there still lurks, just under the surface, the threat that we’ll start killing people again to protect our liberties.

Once lost, rights are reclaimed only through bloodshed. If you’re not willing to kill for your rights, then you’re not getting them back. It’s that simple. Over 200 years ago, the American People made it clear that they were willing to kill people to regain their rights. The British People never held their right to armed self protection so dearly. They traded that right away for imagined protection from the hand of government. Now that deal isn’t working out so well.

Yup another attack featuring motor vehicles and knifes. More innocent people injured or killed and still our government won’t change our self defence laws and classifies bloody pepper spray as a section 5 firearm!!! Remember they have the 24 hour armed bodyguards protecting them while they continue to sell the lie that firearms are not suitable for personal protection and continue to harass legal gun owners.

They can’t guarantee your safety but deny you any means to prepare for your own safety.

Violence, like it or not, is what regains liberties that have been lost. The threat of renewed violence is what keeps those liberties once they’ve been regained. The American People learned this hard lesson from history; our British cousins did not.

Like this:

As if on cue, here’s another letter writer going on about his imagined right to feel safe from non-existent threats. This one is willing to admit to your right to keep and bear arms, but only a version of that right that ends at your front door. The “simple logic” he offers in support of his argument is that “The more loaded guns there are in public, the more bullets will fly.” This argument, however, is not borne out by the facts.

As we recently discussed, areas where gun ownership is at its highest are the areas of the country that are the safest. Homicides and other violent crimes occur in those areas where legal gun ownership is at its lowest. The letter writer’s “simple logic” falls apart in the face of real data. The very restrictions he calls for have, at best, no positive effect on violent crime rates. At worst, they make violent crime worse by making it safer to be a criminal. (Think of gun laws as workplace safety regulations for criminals!) The corollary to his argument would be that the fewer loaded guns there are in public, the fewer bullets will fly. But this is also false. Other factors, such as poverty and the presence of the illicit narcotics trade, decide how many bullets will fly; not the availability of loaded firearms.

Like this:

The Declaration of Independence states that among our “unalienable rights” are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are given to us by God; meaning that they were not granted to us by a king or any other human government. That they are “unalienable” means that these are rights that we are, in fact, powerless to reject. We do so only at our own peril. Rejecting these rights would be like saying that you do not want your kidneys anymore. Perhaps you don’t like their color. Sure, you could have them removed, but you wouldn’t last long!

From the right to life comes the right to protect that life. From that right flows the right to the means to do so. This is where the right protected by (not granted by or created by) the 2nd Amendment comes from. What does not spring from the right to life is a right to be protected from imagined threats.

But this is precisely the right craved by so many on the anti-gun Left. An example comes from a letter writer to the Des Moines Register who asks…

When will legislators on the state and national level stop catering to gun lobbies and do something to make all Americans safer? Everyone should realize we have a Second Amendment that allows people to own guns and that right is not going to be taken away. But where does that amendment stop and my right to live safely begin?

The writer submitted this letter following several shootings in her Beaverdale neighborhood; including at least one homicide. These were not, however, random shootings. They were drug related. In other words, these were criminals shooting other criminals. These weren’t 3-gun shooters or duck hunters running amok. So unless the letter writer is in the illegal narcotics trade, these shooting pose little to no tangible threat to her. The threat exists only in her imagination.

The letter states that “we have a Second Amendment that allows people to own guns and that right is not going to be taken away”, but how else are we to interpret her demand to “live safely”? She focuses on acts committed by criminals, but later laments new Iowa laws that protect the rights of law abiding gun owners in that State. This is a demand that those who threaten no one be disarmed so that others can enjoy the right to feel safe; not actually be safe. That right doesn’t exist.

Like this:

No, this isn’t the same sort of paradox as the bootstrap paradox. I’m talking about the weird, nearly simultaneous arguments that anti-gun types make claiming that we pro-gun types are either stuck in the past or not stuck in the past.

We’re told, on the one hand, that the 2nd Amendment is an outmoded document. We’re told that it’s a relic of a bygone era when most of the country was lawless frontier. We’re told that we need to get with the times, be like Europe, and all but ban firearms from civilian ownership. If there’s trouble, the argument goes, just call 911.

And in the next breath, we’re told that our view of the 2nd Amendment is far too modern. “The Founders could never imagined fearsome weapons of war like the AR-15!” And then, after stating that the 2nd Amendment only protects Brown Bess muskets, these same anti-gun leftists will hop back into their TARDIS and proclaim that the Constitution is a “living document” that evolves with the times.

…but not when we’re talking about guns.

Both arguments are ridiculous. The 2nd Amendment did not create a new right out of thin air. It recognized a preexisting freedom that flows from a right that all Humans have: The right to self defense. If one has the right to self defense, then one has a right to the means of self defense. It doesn’t matter whether that means is a sharp stick or a semiautomatic rifle. Not one of the Founders would have argued that a version of the 2nd Amendment written in the Bronze age wouldn’t have applied to steel weapons. And not one of these anti-gun leftists would argue that the 4th Amendment applies only to documents written on parchment. (Unless, of course, if that level of doublethink were necessary to argue against private gun ownership!) Just as the 4th Amendment applies to electronic files on your computer, so too the 2nd Amendment applies to the modern firearms in your gun safe.

As to their first claim that firearms are now “unneeded” in a modern, civil society, I suggest that they skimafewheadlines from media outlets in Chicago. The Wild West was far more peaceful than is “civilized” Chicago.

Like this:

The firearm is the most versatile self-defense tool that Man has ever developed. It allows the physically weak to equal and potentially best the strong. A 98 pound grandmother can drop a 250 pound thug with one squeeze of the trigger. There’s a make and model that will suit any user or application. But, there are times when you are unable, or not allowed, to have access to a firearm when you really, REALLY need one.

What got me thinking about this was a trip to Disneyland. Disney has really stepped up their game when it comes to security. They used to concentrate on purses and backpacks that guests were carrying into the park. This meant searching mostly women (Who generally aren’t a threat) and ignoring men (…and most violent perps are men!). I don’t know how many times I walked into the park with my knife and they didn’t notice because they were too busy looking in my wife’s purse. That’s no longer the case. Everyone gets looked at now! So now that the knife stays in the car, I started thinking about “what if” scenarios. (Yes, that’s the sort of thing I do while waiting in line at The Happiest Place On Earth. Doesn’t everyone?) I began to notice that there are potential weapons everywhere. These aren’t stand-off weapons like a gun, but neither is a knife.

A school or an office is no different. There are potential weapons all around you. You just have to start seeing things for what they can be made into rather than what they are now. A chair is a place to plant your butt; until you throw it at someone’s head.

Students (or office workers) are taught to lock doors and keep quiet during an active shooter attack. This is a good start. In a classroom, there are lots of heavy objects like tables and file cabinets. Use these to barricade the door. The chairs in the room make nice projectile weapons or clubs, should someone force the door open. (It’s not easy to aim a gun when there’s a chair flying at your face!) Pens and pencils make adequate stabbing instruments; especially when directed at an attacker’s eyes. Look around and think about how this or that can be used to inflict life threatening injuries. Work in teams. While one group of students is throwing things, others should be moving flank the attacker.

Sounds dangerous? It is. But at this point, what have you got to lose?! At the very least, you turn yourself into a moving target. Passivity won’t save your life. You may become someone else’s “meat shield”, but that’s about all sitting and cowering will do.

Like this:

If Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) has her way, shall issue CCW will be coming to California. Melendez has introduced AB 757 to put an end to California’s may issue system; a system that is rife with corruption. Under current California practice, CCW permits are issued at the discretion of local law enforcement. Many authorities who do issue these permits do so only to their more prominent campaign donors or close friends. Others do not issue permits at all by setting requirements that are impossible to meet.

Melendez said of her bill:

“It is our Constitutional right to defend ourselves… Californians should not be subjugated to the personal beliefs of one individual who doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment. If a citizen passes the background check and completes the necessary safety training requirements, there should be no reason to deny them a CCW.”

Of course, there’s little chance that her bill will make it out of whatever committee is assigned to kill it. But Democrat lawmakers really ought to consider it. The alternative is CCW in California where the issuing authority is another State such as Utah. As we’ve mentioned before, nationwide CCW reciprocity is on its way. California can either get out in front of Washington D.C. or get steamrollered.